SC - Compleat Angler #4 minnow, trout

[Christina van Tets]

More Compleat Angler, this time minnow and trout:

Minnow:

Book 1, chap 18, fifth day

... in the spring they make of them excellent minnow-tansies;  for 
being well washed in salt, and their heads amd tails cut off, and 
their guts taken out, and not washed after, they prove excellent for 
that use;  that is, being fried with yolks of eggs, the flowers of 
cowslips, and of primroses, and a little tansy;  thus used they make 
a dainty dish of meat.

[In _The Cookery of England_, by Elisabeth Ayrton, another quote is 
used, apparently also from this work.  I can't remember the exact 
wording, and my book is out on loan, but it runs something like 'on 
your way home from fishing in the early morning, collect primroses 
and cowslips from the fields, and tansy from your garden ...'  Maybe 
this was just her poetic interpretation of what Walton said?  Does 
anyone else have Ayrton?  Can you throw some light on this?  CJvT]


trout:

Book 2, chap 11, third day

Take your trout, wash, and dry him with a clean napkin;  then open 
him, and having taken out his guts, and all the blood, wipe him very 
clean within, but wash him not, and give him three scotches with a 
knife to the bone, on one side only.  Aftyr which take a clean 
kettle, and put in as much hard stale beer (but it must not be dead), 
vinegar, and a little white wine and water as will cover the fish you 
intend to boil;  then throw into the liquor a good quantity of salt, 
the rind of a lemon, a handful of sliced horse-radish root, with a 
handsome light faggot of rosemary, thyme, and winter savory.  Then 
set your kettle upon a quick fire of wood;  and let your liquor boiul 
up to the height before you put in your fish;  and then, if there be 
many, put them in one by one, that they may not so cool the liquor as 
to make it fall.  And whilst your fish is boiling, beat up the batter 
for your sauce with a ladleful or two of the liquor it is boiling in. 
 And being boiled enough, immediately pour the liquor from the fish;  
and being laid in a dish, pour you butter upon it; and strewing it 
plentifully over with shaved horse-radish, and a little pounded 
ginger, garnish the sides of your dish, and the fish itself, with a 
sliced lemon or two, and serve it up.
    A grayling is also to be dressed exactly after the same manner, 
saving that he is to be scaled, which a trout never is:  and that 
must be done either with one's nails, or very lightly and carefully 
with a knife, for fear of bruising the fish.  And note, that these 
kinds of fish, a trout especially, if he is not eaten within four or 
five hours after he is taken, he is worth nothing.

- ----------------

Here endeth the collection of recipes which I have found in The 
Compleat Angler, published 1653, written by Izaak Walton.

I find it interesting that he specifies good butter about as often as 
Chiquart insists on a clean pot.  I presume this is a reaction 
against poor quality butter, as opposed to differentiating cooking 
butter from May butter, which, as I understand, was a medicinal item?  

Were oysters likely to be pickled any differently from vegetables or 
other fish?  

Were anchovies just salted, or was there more done to them than that? 
Or were they preserved in brine, rather than dry-salted, being small?

Cheers,
Cairistiona
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